Cancer And Immune System Assignment Help

Cancer

Cancer is one of the deadly forms of disease that is due to uncontrolled proliferation of cells. In case of cancer cell multiplies in uncontrolled manner in different parts of the body and thus interrupt the normal functioning of the body.

Types of cancer

Different cell of the body respond to different signals that helps in their regulation, but the cancerous cell does not respond to these signal and thus the resulted abnormalities gets accumulated making an individual suffer from cancer. Cancer is the result of malignant tumor that exists in different form like breast cancer, skin cancer, lungs cancer, and many more.

Tumor can be again classified into two types: benign tumor that remains located at the particular place only and does not spread in parts of the body. The other is malignant type that spread in parts of the body though lymphatic system or circulatory system and can be referred to as cancer. Beside these differences, benign tumor can be removed by surgery and it does not harm the body in greater extent, whereas malignant tumor spreads soon, and harms many other parts, therefore it cannot be removed by simple surgical method. These separations are due to the different cells from which these tumors arise.

Cancer can be kept under 3 main categories: carcinomas, sarcomas and leukemia’s. Carcinomas include maximum type of cancer in human that are derived from malignancies of epithelial cells whereas sarcomas tumor are rare and are solid tumor of connective tissue. Finally comes the leukemia’s also called the lymphomas that arise from blood forming cells and immune cells. Reference: www.123rf.com

Properties of cancer cell

Cancer cell proliferate in an uncontrolled manner and hence is not sensitive to density dependent inhibition.

Normal cell when comes in contact with other cell stops to proliferate whereas cancer cell continues to proliferate irrespective of the cell to which it comes in contact.

Angiogenesis i.e. formation of new blood vessel from the growth factor secreted by the cancer cells. These vessels nourish the cancer cells with oxygen and other nutrient in order to help cells grow beyond the size of millions of other cells.

Causes of cancer:

Any substances that cause cancer can be called as carcinogens. There are different carcinogens that act differently and cause cancer. Radiations and many other chemical carcinogens damages DNA thus inducing mutation and the example includes: solar ultraviolet radiation, carcinogen in tobacco smoke like pyrene, nickel and dimethylnitrosamine are main causes of cancer. Therefore, smoking is major cause of lung cancer since it contains harmful carcinogens. In the same way, other carcinogens stimulate cell proliferation thus inducing mutations. Excess of hormone like estrogen also stimulates the likelihood of endometrial cancer. Beside this, viruses also are the main causes of cancer like liver cancer and cervical cancer. These are some of the known causes of cancer. Beside this, bad fooding habit, increasing stress, lack of proper nutrients can also directly or indirectly result in cancer.

Symptoms of cancer:

The symptoms for cancer cannot be accurately located. Generally, symptoms depend on the place where the cancer is located and the way it spreads. Skin cancer can be viewed by the presence of lumps or different patches in the skin whereas in case of lung cancer, blockage in the bronchus can be noticed along with coughing and pneumonia. Likewise, cancer in uterus can be noticed when there is unnecessary blood flow from uterus to vagina. Beside this, enlargement of certain body organs or some noticeable changes can be the symptoms of cancer. Generally, the signs for cancer can be like any other diseases, like if there is a lump in the skin it does not mean that a person is exactly suffering from cancer but yes, it can give a brief idea that the lump can be due to cancer, but confirmation can be done only through diagnosis.

Cancer Treatments:

Though in earlier times it was quite difficult to treat cancer but presently, different therapies and scientific method has been introduced and are bought in use for cancer treatment. Among many, surgery is one of the oldest methods that are still in use. If the cancer cell have not metastasized and cancer is not spread, it becomes easy to remove the cells though surgical method. The other most applied and used method is radiotherapy that uses gamma rays to destroy cancer cells. Similar to radiotherapy is the chemotherapy, in case of chemotherapy; chemicals instead of rays are used to destroy cancer cells. Immunotherapy is the other method where immune system of the body is activated. It can be done in two ways, one way is to protect complete body from cancer by activating all immune cells of the body and forming a protective layer whereas in the other method, only the cells that are cancerous or the organ that has cancer cells are target by the immune system. Beside this, hormonal therapy, vaccination, gene therapy are some of the other ways for treatment of cancer in any patient.

No one can exactly know the way to remain away from cancer, but good fooding habits, avoidance of stressful environment, avoidance of chemicals or any type of drugs, daily exercise etc, can be some of the method that helps to stay fit and away from any kind of diseases, even to some extent cancer can be avoided with acceptance of good habits.

From an immunologic perspective, cancer cells can be viewed as altered self- cells that have escaped normal growth-regulating mechanisms. Tumours of the immune system are classified as lymphomas or leukemias. Lymphomas proliferate as solid tumours within a lymphoid tissue such as a bone marrow, lymph node, or thymus.